Security forces cracked down on protesters occupying a copper mine early Thursday, using water cannons and other devices to break up the rally hours before opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was expected to hear their grievances.

Unexplained fires engulfed the protest camps at the Letpadaung mine in northwestern Myanmar and dozens of Buddhist monks and villagers were injured, according to several protesters. Those who fled the site emerged with burns and charred clothing on their bodies.

Congolese rebels have made no major moves to withdraw from the key city of Goma, the United Nations has said, issuing a new call for foreign countries to stop meddling in the volatile region.

The U.N. Security Council passed a French-drafted resolution Wednesday saying it would consider sanctions against more M23 rebel leaders and "those providing external support,” though it did not name any country.

Iran on Wednesday welcomed a British court ruling against the extradition of former Iranian ambassador Nosratollah Tajik, wanted by Washington for allegedly conspiring to smuggle arms to the Islamic republic.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes the court ruling, even though it was delayed for six years," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, quoted by state broadcaster IRIB.

Ethiopian troops will remain in Somalia until African Union forces fighting Islamists can take over, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said Wednesday, as he met with his Somali counterpart.

"We are waiting for AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) force to come and replace us, and until we get that assurance then we will be waiting there," he told reporters.

Cuba on Wednesday announced elections will be held on February 3 for the country's national and provincial assemblies, a process controlled by Cuba's communist party.

Under the electoral system in place in Cuba since 1976, recently-elected delegates to municipal councils choose candidates from among themselves to run for the provincial assemblies and for half the seats in the National Assembly of People's Power.

U.S. President Barack Obama will host his defeated Republican foe Mitt Romney for a conciliatory private lunch at the White House on Thursday in their first encounter since a bitter election.

Obama's press secretary Jay Carney said the meeting would take place in the president's private dining room next to the Oval Office and would be closed to the press.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkey on Monday, his first foreign trip since October, to discuss relations and the situation in the Middle East, the Kremlin said.

Wednesday's announcement is the first official confirmation of the date for the long-awaited Putin visit following a delay amid tensions over the Syria conflict and speculation the Russian president was not well enough to travel.

Madagascar's government on Wednesday announced an international probe into allegations of rights abuses by its security forces during a recent crackdown on cattle-rustling gangs.

"Joint investigations will be carried out by the government and the international community so that there won't be doubts and questions about what happened there," Prime Minister Omer Beriziky's office said in a statement.

The International Federation for Human Rights on Wednesday denounced extrajudicial killings, repression, torture and other rights abuses in Mauritania.

"If, under the regime of (President) Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, people dare to exercise their rights, they are often victims of repression, arrest and imprisonment," read a joint report with the Mauritania Human Rights Association published Wednesday.

World powers are proposing to Iran to hold their first round of talks in six months on Tehran's nuclear program already in the first half of December in Istanbul, diplomatic sources say.

"The United States want to move fast," one senior diplomat said after talks in Brussels last Wednesday among negotiators from the "P5+1" -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.